Heads up to HS teachers

[Serenity-NOW]

Now is the time to throw a little pizza or pool party or BBQ or something for the youths. Pitch the Democratic line and try to get them registered. They only need to be 18 by the time of the election and if you don't catch them now... SUMMERTIME.

During our smashing Kerry House Party, where I met a number from the local educational community who saw the invite in the paper, we joined forces and set out a plan to get the youth to come and listen to why they might like to start voting ASAP. Or prepare to find themselves traveling with light infantry.

So we're having a Pizza party on June 5 for just HS people and a pool party on June 26 for the next Kerry House call.

Those are fun, from what my elders tell me it's like an old FDR fireside chat. And we raised some dosh to boot.

If you throw a House Party try to make sure you get it into the paper a week or so in advance.

[bbernardini]

1. As a teacher...

I'm not so sure this is a hot idea. While I completely agree with the idea of getting people to vote for Kerry, I suspect most communities wouldn't look too highly on teachers inviting students to their home for a party (especially a pool party). Too risky, in my (humble) opinion, even if the party was completely innocent.

[LisaM]

2. Probably better to keep politics out of the classroom, too....

If a teacher was using a classroom or list of students as a bully pulpit for *, I would hate that.

[greenbriar]

3. right on both accounts

as a teacher, I do NOT invite students to my house and am VERY careful not to let my political bias show.



I do however let them know how to register and give them extra credit when the bring their voter card in. I am also sure to point out "flaws" in the world today. But I can not assign blame. Much as I would love to scream from the rafters. I have to be careful.

[politicat]

4. HOWEVER, Dem party captains can do the same thing.

Without the worry of getting in trouble with the schools.

If you know your local party, this is something to tell them. And get your talking points straight - tell the kids why it affects them and how 4 more years (shudder) will basically screw with their entire lives - making college more impossible than it already is, making access to low cost health care more impossible, making access to contraception and abortion more difficult, concerns about possible military compulsory service, environmental decay, needs must I go on?

Those four years of undergraduate work are the foundation of careers, and those four years after leaving HS are also the time when anyone not going to college sets a foundation for much of the rest of their life with vocational and technical training, both on and off the job.

Best,

Pcat

[Zolok]

5. True...

school boards won't go for that degree of poltitization...but one can always pitch the seniors on the necessity and right to vote.
Heck work something out with the town clerk so they send someone down to the HS to register qualifying seniors.
No agenda no partisanship just get em' enrolled.
It is what we need to do here in Massachusetts if we want to roll back the anti gay marriage amendment.

www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com

[denverbill]

6. A teacher's job is to teach kids HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

Nobody had to 'teach' me to be a liberal, and nobody has to teach them either.

A teacher can teach empathy, open-mindedness, and logical analysis. If they teach that and the students learn it, they'll be liberals. If they teach ethnocentrism, rote-memorization, and authoritarian-style, they'll be conservatives.

[iconoclastic cat]

7. Sorry, but this is a really bad idea.

Educate and encourage, but throwing a house party for your students?

I know you mean well, but any teacher worth her or his salt knows that teachers should not fraternize with students socially. This is the sort of thing that teachers are fired for doing.